The first time Swain made this swim was Earth Day three years ago and he said he has since seen some change.

“There’s a federal cleanup underway that’s gonna take out the muck of the bottom, but that’s not gonna help necessarily with the plumbing problems that put sewage and contaminated runoff into the canal,” he said.

His mission: to speed up the clean up.

“I’m thinking, hey, we built a space shuttle; we built an iPhone in this country. We can figure out how to not contaminate this canal, to make it safe for swimming,” Swain said.

And he’s not going to stop swimming here, until its safe for everyone to swim and boat here, Deangelis reported.

Swain said he’s swam in the Hudson River, the Long Island Sound and the East River, all in his push for clean water.